Opinion: Springfield lags behind Nixa in tech prowess

I’m happy for Nixa, but at the same time jealous of its residents.

After pushing hard for gigabit Internet speeds for years, the city to Springfield’s south gained that competitive advantage this summer. Thank Suddenlink Communications for choosing to invest in the community, but the real heroes are city staff, civic leaders and residents who indicated the demand was there.

It has me thinking: Why is Springfield lagging behind?

Being comparatively smaller, Nixa has reason to do what it can to attract business. That makes sense, and Nixa has really stepped it up a notch in terms of technological prowess.

Springfield, not as much.

As a residential customer, I am stuck with lackluster speeds. I live and work in the heart of the state’s third-largest metropolitan area, and Web speeds are handily eclipsed in a smaller bedroom community.

Gigabit is a buzzword, so let me do my best to give you an idea of how important it is, especially for businesses that rely heavily on speed.

Using SpeedTest.net and other download tests online, I found Springfield Business Journal’s office Internet speeds to average around 90 megabits per second. That means I could download 11.25 megabytes in a second, or about 676 megabytes in a minute. That equates to downloading a low-quality movie in 60 seconds. Admittedly, that’s a good speed – much better than I’ve ever had at home.

But let’s say our office had 1 gigabit speeds. That means I could download that same low-quality movie in 5 seconds. To give a direct comparison, a gigabit per second is roughly 11 times faster than the Internet speed I have access to at SBJ. Think of what that could do for uploading and downloading high-volumes of high-resolution images and videos.

This is an access issue. While City Utilities’ broadband division, SpringNet, is rolling out a small-business platform with faster Internet speeds, it’s still early in development and has limited availability.

Now, that’s a lot of numbers and technical jargon, so let’s use a common and much more understood real-world example.

It takes about 3 hours and 20 minutes to drive to St. Louis from Springfield, according to Google Maps. If I bought a new super-charged car that promises me speeds 11 times faster, I could get there in just under 18 minutes.

It’s a bit of an outlandish example, because certainly, cars can’t go that fast. But the Internet can, given the right vehicle.

Suddenlink Communications has provided Nixa residents with that super-charged car. We’re still riding horses in Springfield and steeds with a limp, at that.

Springfield is gaining some ground, albeit slowly. SpringNet, which has the ability to offer gigabit-level speeds, historically only focuses on such institutional businesses as Mercy, Expedia and Springfield Public Schools. It’s taken a solid step forward with the small-business pilot in center city. Also, Mediacom is advertising its existing fiber network in Springfield, which reportedly provides gigabit-level speeds to large business clients.

It’s a start, but it’s not enough. It should be easier to get fast Internet in Springfield.

Service providers should be lining up to offer it to us. You may not think you need it, but once you have it, you’ll no longer have speed-related Internet problems.

At this rate, Nixa is poised to leave Springfield in the proverbial dust.

Springfield Business Journal Web Editor Geoff Pickle can be reached at gpickle@sbj.net.